New York Times - Top Stories

Pranav Baskar

Terrorists are adapting to the online era. Exploiting video games like Roblox and social media platforms, extremist groups are recruiting a shocking number of children.

Pranav Baskar

In Europe and North America, children now account for 42 percent of terrorism-related investigations — a threefold rise since 2021, according to U.N. investigators.

Pranav Baskar

To understand this trend, I spoke to counter-recruiters, young defectors from hate groups and parents whose children were groomed by Nazis online.

Pranav Baskar

Researchers have uncovered servers on games like Roblox, where users can simulate shootings and extremist violence. Groomers meet children online and take them to unmonitored chat rooms.

Pranav Baskar

“At rock bottom,” one young Swede told me of his radicalization, “I would say if you would ask me then if Hitler did anything wrong, I would have said ‘no.’”